Wedding Dress "Rescued" From Swampscott Blaze
SWAMPSCOTT (CBS) -- It was the final detail before Julie Jones' Saturday wedding: to pick up her dress at the tailor shop.
She never made it, as fire ripped through a century-old building in Swampscott that houses not only Peter's Tailoring, but other businesses and apartments.
"To feel like it's three days before the wedding and you have to start over from scratch," said Jones. "It did break my heart, but it's just a dress at the end of the day," she said.
Not so to shop owner Vera Spagnuolo, whose first thought was not her lost business, but of Julie's dress.
WBZ-TV's Beth Germano reports.
"The people are what keeps us in business. We are very concerned for them," she said.
At the fire scene two firefighters were alerted to the special dress inside and went in.
"We were able to see into the back of the store, made our sprint, and got out of there. It was our good deed," said Swampscott fire investigator Bob Faulkner.
The dress, a soaking mess inside a garment bag was taken by Spagnuolo to a clothing restoration business. Jones never thought she would see the dress in time to walk down the aisle and made an emergency purchase to replace it, amazed at the care and concern of the shop owners.
"They seemed more concerned about me and my dress and that I was alright than the fact they lost a business," said Jones.
The stretch of shops reduced to rubble left Peter's Tailoring without even a needle and thread.
Julie Jones knows her story will have a happy ending, but it's not easy to walk away.
"I think about all the people who lost their belongings in the fire, it must be devastating," she said.
Fire investigators believe the blaze started in the basement of a store, but are still not certain of the cause.
